Opinion
This filibuster farce only
damages parliament
Private 1nen1bers' bills can bring huge benefits but it's too easy for MPs to talk tl1e1n out
the same year were all private
members' bills, supported by the
Labour government of the day. But
today, PMBs are more likely to be in
the news for rather less grand reasons.
They promise so much - giving
carers free parking at hospitals or
preventing vindictive landlords from
@ISABELHARDMAN
chucking tenants out, for instance but bellyflop in the chamber, leaving
very so often, those of us
those who campaigned for them bitterly disappointed.
who hunch over desks in
parliament are reminded we
These bills tend to sink because a
work in a very odd place.
handful of MPs deploy an old
technique called the filibuster, a
Sometimes it's the
leqgthy speech taking up all the time
doorkeeper in full black-and-white
allocated to a bill and preventing a
livery sweeping past your desk with a
_ \l.ote. If there is no vote, the legislation
sword on his hip. Or h·ying to fincL
your way to pa1ts of the building
dies. The Tory Philip Davies is the
most high-profile filibustering villain,
known as the Snake Pit (a dismal
basement) and the Yellow Submarine though the outrage of the Labour
MPs whose bills have been talked out
(a corridor). But one of the strangest
would ring a little less hollow if their
things about parliament isn't so
party didn't hold the record for a
much its wonderful old traditions
1
and winding corridors, but what
1
happens there on a Friday.
Friday sittings aren't very well
attended, because most MPs need to
~
be in their constituencies holding
surgeries and enthusing about the
new corrugated cardboard factory.
PMB filibuster; Andrew Dismore's
But even with a relatively small
197-minute speech killed a backbench
number of MPs sitting on the green
Tory bill on the degree of force that
benches, these sessions are doing a
disproportionate harm to
householders can use against
intruders.
parliament's reputation. They are set
MPs can just keep talking in a
aside for backbenchers to introduce
hellish version of Just a Minute, so
their own pieces of legislation,
long as they don't deviate from the
known as private membet's' bills.
ln the 1960s, these bills brought
bill, or repeat themselves. Mr Davies
has quoted from the 1987 Tory
. about some of the biggest social
changes in Britain: the abolition of the manifesto in Friday speeches, while
death penalty in 1965, the 1967
his colleague Jacob Rees-Mogg even
managed to talk about the quality of
Abortion Act and the
wine at the Garrick Club.
decriminalisation of homosexuality in
Isabel
·Hardman
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Abolition of the death t(
penalty c3II1e from a
private member's bill /
scru~y of the legislation and take
the mickey out of the Commons
chamber.
This would be interesting only to
the small group of parliamentary
geeks w~o know how to reach the
Snake ?1t - were it not for the fact
tha~ private members' bills are often
on 1~sues that attract huge interest
outs1d~ the Commons. The process
by which they are killed and the
arguments in favour o(filibustering
are so complicated it often appears
to ~ose who did sign a petition
calling for carers to get free hospital
parking that one selfish MP stopped
the Bill because he doesn't care
abo~t sick people. And it makes
parliament appear powerless.
It would almost be better to have
no backbench bills at all than the
current system, which offers a false
glimmer of hope.
MPs on the Commons Procedure
Committee are holding an inquiry
into PMBs, and I'm one of the
journalists giving evidence to it this
week. So what can be done? Both
Speaker Bercow and the Hansard
Society have suggested moving the
.debates and votes for these bills to
Tuesdays or Wednesdays, when MPs
ate around. There is time: the
Commons doesn't sit until ll.30am
The only way to stop these
garrulous MPs talking out a bill is if
100 colleagues vote in favour of a
"closure motion". But 100 helpful
MPs are hard to come by on Fridays,
and so the filibusterers drone on.
Why do MPs such as Mr Davies
bother playing this game? The
Shipley MP told the Commons that
the late Eric Forth, a Tory MP who
loved a good filibuster, "taught me
early on that many [PMBs] had a
worthy sentiment behind them, but
that we should notjust pass
legislation on the whim of a worthy
sentiment, because it can have lots of
unintended consequences that affect
people's lives and livelihoods".
, Mr Davies and MPs from all
parties who filibuster have a point
about the dangers of legislation
answering a Something Must Be
Done instinct Besides, a Friday vote
doesn't truly reflect the will of the
Commons: even the Assisted Dying
Bill, which had an excellent
debate, only had 448 out of 650
MPs voting.
But those who talk out bills tend to
be selective in their opposition. A
good backbench bill passed in the
last parliament was Gavin Barwell's
Mental-Health (Discrimination)
(No 2) Bill, which stopped MPs and
company directors losing their jobs
because they had mental health
problems. The filibusterers stayed
away, which was good for Barwell's
campaign, perhaps, but what it
showed was that MPs such as Mr
Davies have effectively appointed
themselves as the powerful
regulators of backbench legislation,
picking only on bills they personally
object to. They prevent proper
on both days. There would be
sufficient numbers of MPs to vote
down a prattling parliamentarian
before expressing a view on whether
the bill itself was much cop.
It might not mean that any more
of these bills introduced on a whim
are passed, but it would stop
parliament looking quite so
ridiculous. And it might give Philip
Davies a well-deserved day off.